Simone Biles' withdrawal reminds us that she's human -- and still very much the GOAT

(CNN) Simone Biles came to the Tokyo Olympics looking to earn another gold medal or four and deliver yet another stellar performance before potentially retiring. But then she did something her fans had never seen before: She faltered.

She was attempting an advanced vault move known as the Amanar, which she'd executed perfectly in a previous competition . The move involves a back handspring with two-and-a-half twists in the air before landing. It's a feat for the average Olympian, but when Biles nails it, she looks effortless.

On Tuesday, though, Biles "looked like she got lost" somewhere in the air, CNN sports analyst Christine Brennan said. She nearly landed on her knees and left the field of play close to tears. Minutes later, word came that Biles would not compete with the team.

"Worst nightmare coming to pass here," Brennan said of Biles exiting the event.

Simone Biles performs on the vault during the artistic gymnastics women's final at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Her departure stunned the sports world and her many fans in the US who've seen her repeatedly make the most difficult moves in gymnastics look like standard playground stunts. Biles' talent and charisma has catapulted her to a pedestal so high and seemingly untouchable that any mistake is magnified, and it's all the more devastating -- to Biles and to her many fans -- when she falls.

Biles isn't one to hide how she feels. After her less-than-perfect performance in the preliminary round Sunday, she said she feels like she has "the weight of the world on [her] shoulders at times."

Biles is seen as superhuman

The spotlight is stuck on her

"There's never been a moment in the history of athletics where we know so much about the athletes," said Cheryl Thompson, an assistant professor at Ryerson University who studies celebrity culture.

"I'm going to go out there and represent the USA, represent World Champions Centre and represent Black and brown girls over the world," she told the Times. "At the end of the day, I'm not representing USA Gymnastics."

"The Olympic Games itself is really just about creating heroes out of people so that we have someone or something to look up to and to inspire us," Thompson said. "I think that's at the core of the Olympic spirit."

And when we see someone at the pinnacle of athletic achievement, someone we think we know because she's shared so much of herself with us, fall and make a mistake, we feel some of that pain, too, Thompson said.

A few hours after the competition ended, Biles told reporters she felt like she "didn't do [her] job" and let her team down. Her guilt was palpable.

The 2020 Olympics are more intense than usual, but Biles' time isn't over yet

"I think we're just too stressed out," she told reporters. "We should be out here having fun but that's not the case."

The 2020 Summer Olympic Games are more intense than usual. For one, they're taking place during a deadly pandemic that isn't slowing. Biles' family isn't with her to cheer her from the stands; very few fans are there at all.

The Olympics, in the span of two weeks, are a microcosm of the human experience -- the euphoric highs, the extreme lows -- "the joys of victory and the agony of defeat," Thompson said. The intensity is part of the draw for viewers, she said, but Biles' performance on Tuesday was more shocking than viewers had expected.

"The Olympic Games reflect so much of our times," Thompson said. "And I think this is the perfect metaphor, perhaps, for 2021."

Tuesday won't be the end of Biles' Tokyo legacy. Her disappointment was evident in her answers to reporters, but she knows herself well enough to notice when something's off and when to take time to recover. She's taking it a day at a time, she said, and will continue to be evaluated ahead of individual competitive events she was scheduled to participate in.

So few people can say they know what it feels like to be Biles, to continuously prove you're the greatest at something while the world watches. But Biles is the greatest not because she's never lost, but because, now that she has, she's reminded us what happens when the burden of expectations becomes too heavy for even the most celebrated among us to bear.

She's just a human being, after all, albeit one who can fly and flip through the air with ease and break records without breaking a sweat. Biles has given the US and the world a hero to root for -- a hero whose mental health needs tending, something many of her fans can likely relate to.